


workday lunches

by polkadot



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/F, Flirting, Office Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 00:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13601799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: C.J. and Kate flirt over lunches.





	workday lunches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brutti_ma_buoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/gifts).



The West Wing is a very complicated place sometimes. Especially since there’s a leaker running around giving state secrets away to Greg Brock, and maybe the leaker has a point on this particular issue, but once you start giving away confidential state secrets, where does it end? C.J. doesn’t need these headaches, not now, not when there’s a presidential campaign right now, not when there’s a possible war looming between Russia and China, not when the American people need stability and strength from this Administration, not disunity and dissension and what some are calling treachery.

(C.J., imagining those astronauts trapped up there, potentially being sacrificed to preserve the secrecy surrounding a piece of military equipment the whole world already assumed the United States had anyway, does not feel like calling it treachery. In her heart of hearts, she feels a little ashamed that she didn’t commit it herself.)

But sometimes, sometimes, it isn’t complicated at all.

Sometimes C.J. takes a ten-minute break from her world of business and bustle and run-on sentences and hunt-down-the-leaker and brief-the-President and keep-Josh-from-going-supernova-via-phone, and she sits at her desk and eats a sandwich. The best kind of sandwich, a sandwich eaten in absolute silence, with the perfect tomatoes that Margaret gets from the farmer’s market.

And on the best days – the very best days – Kate comes by and has lunch with her.

For those lunches, C.J. will gladly sacrifice silence. She’ll sit and laugh – Kate can always make her laugh – and eat her sandwich while Kate eats her chicken salad and tells her stories about her experience playing clarinet in her high school band. For a few minutes, all the stress fades away, and there’s only the curve of Kate’s smile and the brightness of her eyes.

C.J. has it bad.

Soon – all too soon – this crazy ride will be over. Soon they won’t have an excuse to share these lunches, an oasis in the middle of the world’s most powerful building. Soon C.J. won’t be able to sneak covert glances, and meet Kate’s eyes over her briefing folders.

But soon C.J. won’t be Chief of Staff. Soon she won’t be anyone’s superior, soon she’ll just be C.J. Cregg, retired. 

And on that day, C.J. thinks she just might take her courage in both hands, and ask Kate out to a proper lunch. Somewhere special. Somewhere where she can wear something fancy, and make Kate laugh, and walk her to her door afterwards, and maybe even kiss her good night. A woman can dream.

For now, she meets Kate’s eyes over their workday lunches, and thinks, from the shy smile on Kate’s face, that she’s in with a chance.

She smiles back, and starts counting the days.


End file.
